Arisen

Neolithic survival real-time strategy. Based back in the stone age era Arisen addresses the difficulties of the beginning of mankind... A player takes care of the tribe settling a harsh environment inhabited by wild animals and competing tribes. He has to build a safe place for generations to come and lead the tribe through all dangers.

New kind of strategy

Arisen is a different type of real-time strategy standing somewhere between the classic RTS, survival strategy and life simulation. Taking care of the tribe combines the features of them all. Quick and clever unit management, including women, children, and elders, is necessary to be effective and prosperous, good building strategy can precede lots of problems, while smart resource management can help your tribe survive. Player has to be prepared for unpleasant weather conditions and regular season changes.

Living cave art

The game art style is strongly inspired by ancient cave paintings. We would like to build up a feeling of a living cave art and shift the general view of cave paintings as a simple and primitive art form. We take them more as a proof of a cultural and social advancement of our ancestors. Almost every animal in the game is based on real cave art painting, so it lives in the game as the ancient men used to know it and as they painted it.

Today we will tell you more about the tribes in Arisen and their inner structure. You possibly know that Stone Age societies were mostly build on various hunter-gatherer bands. From what we know, they were not the same. These bands varied a lot between each other. They had different culture, rules and customs, they believed in different values and shared different faith.

So, what does they have in common? At first they all keep together to enhance their potential and strength. A lonely wolf didn’t have much chances against the cruel outside world and humans become a successful species on earth by developing their ability to cooperate, communicate and sensibly divide tasks through the whole group. Most of the tribes were egalitarian which basically means our ancestors weren’t as egocentric as later humans were. Ownership and social statuses in a tribe weren’t distributed as member’s personal achievements and there was equality stronger than we hardly have in modern times. Constant danger of the outside world forced everyone to focus on surviving of the group and there were hardly a place to disagreements, forced labor or personal interests.

It was also possible by the fact that at the beginning most of hunter-gatherer bands consisted of one or two families. Lack of resources enabled to support only limited amount of people in closed territory. Later, when humans developed advanced hunting weapons and tactics and was able to gather more food, their societies increased in numbers and along with it, there came the need for hierarchy and social diversification.

Ok, that’s too encyclopedic, what it’s all about?

Those are principles we used to create the basic game mechanics. And it forms main tasks every successful tribe need to do. So here there are!

1) Gather food and raw materials to support the tribe and survive!

Arisen is about survival, your tribe members will have to fight through harsh weather conditions, beasts or other tribe raids, famine, lack of materials and even time. One cannot do much to prevent these afflictions, so the only way of surviving is to overcome them by collecting supplies and taking care of each other

In fact the most of the in-game actions are centered on and around the hunter-gathering and fighting part of the prehistoric human life. Even when our ancestors were far from simple mindless gathering machines, we consider it the most interesting part from the gameplay point of view, while the deeper layers of ancient mankind life will be covered in an artistic part of Arisen. In the end, game is inspired by cave paintings and ancient artists weren’t really interested in love stories and simple tasks of everyday life.

2) Care of you weakest and elders! Without them, there is no future.

Important mechanic of Arisen is a life cycle of tribe members. They all undergo the same states throughout their lives. They born as helpless children who needs protection and care, than they grow up becoming an adult - man or woman with their specific role among the tribe society. Finally if they are lucky enough to survive, they become elders and possibly die of aging after a while. You guess right, that dying of age is mostly a rare way of ending the life cycle.

In the game, you will need to care about all people of all age and gender. Everyone have its role.

Child - the future of your tribeBecause of the life cycle, even the strongest warrior of your tribe will be old or dead once. Children aren’t very helpful at the beginning and consumes considerable amount of supplies, but if there are not enough of them, the tribe will become old, and in the end, extinct.

Man - the hunter and the protectorMen are strong and fearless. Or dead.They don’t have any other option. They hunt, they scout, they protect your settlement against wild beasts and fight when other tribes get too close to poses a threat. Threat to your settlement, or your precious sources.

Woman - the gatherer and the life giverWomen aren’t as strong as their male counterpart, but has a much more important role than fighting. They bringing new life, taking care of tribe youngsters, keep the fire and the settlement running and nurse and heal their protectors if wounded. And you should protect your women well. Other tribes sometimes want to steal them from you.

Elder - the keeper of knowledge and teacherThe capacity and will to care about weak and old members were at the beginning of wisdom and technology revolution. Elders weren’t good in hunting or gathering. But it was their experience they were able to teach the youngsters, what made them indispensable for the tribe. And what made a mankind as it is today. You will need the weak and fragile elders to extend your wisdom and knowledge about how to better survive in the hostile world.

3) Arm your warriors and hunters!

Men can make and by armed with different weapons to make their task a bit easier:

The basic weapon is sharpened wooden staff, it can keep enemies at distance and giving a bit advantage against teeth and claws of predators.

Advanced close combat weapon is stone axe, or club. Sharp one handed weapon usually wielded with simple wooden or leather shield. It’s not the best hunting weapon, but excels in fight.

First and simple ranged weapon is javelin. It goes through the hardest skin and makes serious damage, but has a limited range.

The last weapon is a bow. Archery is very useful in hunt and fight because of the long range, but you may find its damage insufficient against tough skin animal like rhinos and mammoths, and also a good shield can bring you some troubles.

4) Keep the tribe together!

Ok, we have already said, that you won’t have to care about needs and urges of everyday life. But there is one thing every successful tribe has to deal with. A chief. As said above, a smaller tribes consist of one or two families are easy to manage and a great leader is not necessary. But after a while, when tribe has enough food and want to expand, there have to be someone who will be able to manage all disputes between tribe members and is strong and experience enough to make a right decision and enforce it. Having a good chief is crucial especially for bigger tribes. He keeps the tribe together and make people cooperate. Having a weak chief may cause your tribe members doubt about ability to survive and tend them to leave the tribe or even become hostile.

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The first beta release of our game Arisen. Just unzip the file and run.

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Interesting concept as I've been looking for something set in the stone age, I do wonder however if the art style will just make the learning curve more difficult.
Looking forward to your continued progress.

Thank you for your interest, i came with this topic with similar reason. I missed something from that archaic ages.
And in first concept, it really was a bit limiting and confusing. But we try to make basic mechanics clear and simple to be learned easily. But we could use some new testers to check it up :)

Thank you for the response Khargarwargonsu, as I said I really like the concept and that particular era has gotten almost no attention. If you would like, I can certainly test and provide accurate feedback for you as I have already done this sort of thing for I.S.G.
Feel free to P.M. me when the time is right if you think it would be helpful